Nutritive value of red clover and lucerne forages for ruminants estimated by in vitro and in vivo digestibility methods

P. Homolka, V. Koukolová, M. Podsedníček and A. Hlaváčková
Additional contact information
P. Homolka: Institute of Animal Science, Prague-Uhříněves, Czech Republic
V. Koukolová: Institute of Animal Science, Prague-Uhříněves, Czech Republic
M. Podsedníček: Institute of Animal Science, Prague-Uhříněves, Czech Republic
A. Hlaváčková: Faculty of Agrobiology, Food and Natural Resources, Czech University of Life Sciences Prague, Prague, Czech Republic

Czech Journal of Animal Science, 2012, vol. 57, issue 10, 454-468

Abstract: The aim of this study was to determine the nutrient and energy levels of red clover and lucerne forage. Investigation of forage at different maturity stages of three growths was carried out by chemical analysis, in vitro and in vivo digestibility methods. Generally, maturation caused a significant increase in fibre fractions. With the increasing maturity of forage samples the in vivo, in vitro, and calculated in vivo (in vivocalcul) digestibilities of organic matter (OM) linearly decreased. The in vitro and in vivocalcul digestibilities of OM averaged 0.754 and 0.708 for red clover and 0.717 and 0.667 for lucerne, respectively. The in vivo OM digestibility averaged 0.710 for red clover and 0.666 for lucerne. Gross energy (GE), digestible energy (DE), metabolizable energy (ME), net energy for lactation (NEL), and net energy for growth (NEG) averaged 18.12, 12.41, 9.60, 5.67, 5.50 and 18.09, 11.56, 9.01, 5.26, 4.99 MJ/kg of dry matter for red clover and lucerne, respectively. The effect of a vegetative stage on energy values of both forages was diverged for various growth times. When data were pooled across the estimated season, seven cutting-specific equations for descriptions of GE, DE, ME, NEL, NEG, in vitro, and in vivo OM digestibilities were obtained for red clover and lucerne, separately. The red clover model expression gave similar prediction equations for lucerne. It was possible to predict cutting-specific equations with coefficients of determination R2 > 0.719 for red clover and R2 > 0.400 for lucerne of the variation in GE, DE, ME, NEL, and NEG. The in vitro and in vivo OM digestibility equations were predicted with R2 being 0.840 (in vitro) and 0.707 (in vivo) for red clover, and 0.979 (in vitro) and 0.937 (in vivo) for lucerne. The parameters of these specific equations were statistically preferable than the general model expression which included both forages together.

Keywords: ruminant; forage quality; organic matter digestibility; energy value (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://cjas.agriculturejournals.cz/doi/10.17221/6346-CJAS.html (text/html)
http://cjas.agriculturejournals.cz/doi/10.17221/6346-CJAS.pdf (application/pdf)
free of charge

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:caa:jnlcjs:v:57:y:2012:i:10:id:6346-cjas

DOI: 10.17221/6346-CJAS

Access Statistics for this article

Czech Journal of Animal Science is currently edited by Bc. Michaela Polcarová

More articles in Czech Journal of Animal Science from Czech Academy of Agricultural Sciences
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Ivo Andrle ().